Get Insight into Your Employee's Performance with Powerful Tracking Technology

Gone are those days when you worked in the office and were easily able to effortlessly look around and see what your colleagues or employees were working on, and also be able to keep track of their productivity and performance of your employees. But now it is becoming increasingly difficult for managers to understand what their teams are working on and how effective their work is as many employees are working remotely, some of them working in fields and some are switching to hybrid work environments.

For managers to be able to gather a full picture of their employees' contributions and performance in the workplace, they need to be more intentional about how they communicate with them. In either case, it can be difficult for employers to unravel the mystery surrounding the over-promises and under-performance of their employees, no matter whether they work remotely or in the office.

The most important thing to remember is that tracking the performance of an employee has become much more complicated than just calculating the hours worked each day.

The following tips will be able to help you get more out of your employees without putting them under any additional pressure if you have been searching for the holy grail of optimizing work delivery and getting insights into your employee’s performance.

1. Set Employee goals & evaluate them

When it comes to establishing expectations and evaluating employee performance, employee goals are arguably the best and most objective methods. As a result of the fact that goals are set collaboratively by managers and employees at the beginning of the year or quarter, both parties are able to discuss what they expect to accomplish and align on what success looks like throughout the year or quarter.

It is essential to have clear goals so that leaders can assess their people's performance in an agreed-upon way. As a result, direct reports understand exactly what they are responsible for, can gauge where they stand, and avoid any surprises during one-on-one meetings because these goals encapsulate the expectations of the job.

In addition to helping managers keep direct reports updated about their performance throughout the year, setting goals can also help managers communicate with them, providing them with information about how they are doing, what is working well, and what needs improvement.”

TrackOlap’s free tracking software should be used to set clear, attainable, and measurable goals for managers so that they can provide objective and clear evaluations of employee performance. It also offers managers a designated place in which they can securely store these goals so that they can refer to them and assess the progress of their employees as the year progresses.

2. 360-degree feedback

One person is only able to determine an individual's performance in a very biased manner and this can lead to an employee missing valuable feedback from those who work directly with them on a daily basis if they are just given feedback by one person. Your organization should consider implementing 360-degree reviews in order to provide a more comprehensive and objective view of an individual's performance.

There are three parts to this kind of performance review: one is the self-review, the other one is the peer review, and the third one is the manager review. Managers can use this method to get feedback from their employees’ colleagues about their work, time management, communication skills, teamwork, and so on.

The managers of a company can often comment upon the overall result of the employee's work - such as whether he or she met their quota or contributed to the company's quarterly sales forecasts, for example - but they are not able to comment on how the employee arrived at such an outcome.

Suppose, for example, that your top performing salesperson has overpromised to your clients features that the company is unable to deliver to them to meet their quarterly targets at the last minute, causing a negative impact on your team members, your customers, and your company long-term.

When a team member works with an employee on a daily basis, they can add a lot of contexts to the employee's review and can offer helpful feedback that can not only make the employee a better employee but also make them a better teammate.

As a manager, you will not only be able to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the employees' overall contributions and achievements when you conduct 360-degree reviews through extensive employee monitoring software. You will also be able to provide your direct reports with more actionable, tactical feedback they can use in their day-to-day duties — which is a win-win for everyone.

3. Leverage automated project management tools

In addition to keeping employees on task, managers can also gain insight into how their projects are progressing by using task management software , such as TrackOlap. Using project management tools is crucial for any team to communicate asynchronously and collaborate effectively.

As a result, managers are given both a general overview of the employee's productivity as well as a detailed perspective of each employee's output through these tools, allowing them to track everything from high-level KPIs to daily ongoing tasks.

To be able to assess their direct reports’ performance and provide more detailed feedback during the next review cycle, managers must have a thorough understanding of their employees' work and contributions throughout the year, thus allowing them to more accurately assess their direct reports' performance.

4. Adopt time-tracking software

It is increasingly important for employers to increase visibility into their employees' day-to-day performance. One way to achieve this is by investing in a software monitoring tool or a time-tracking app that can assist employers in keeping track of employee activity throughout the day.

As a result, managers will be better able to evaluate the performance of their employees and provide constructive feedback, by keeping track of what each employee is doing and how much time they are spending on each task so that they can better coach and mentor them.

Additionally, tracking tools can be helpful for managers to gain insight into the strengths and weaknesses of their employees, which can help them determine more efficiently how to assign tasks and projects to their team members and identify opportunities for training.

As a manager, this will give your insight into the approximate number of hours an employee spends doing each task, without potentially damaging the relationship between manager and employee if you break the trust of the employee.

5. Monitor ongoing performance

In the weeks preceding a performance review, managers risk succumbing to recency bias if they simply evaluate an employee's performance in the weeks leading up to the review. As a result, they might forget all of the excellent work that their employees have achieved throughout the year.

It is necessary that managers regularly contact their direct reports, allowing them to inform them of what they are working on, how they are progressing toward their goals, and in which areas they need assistance, in order to give an accurate assessment of an employee's performance throughout the entire review period. The best time to engage in these conversations is via one-on-one meetings every week or biweekly, and they provide managers with valuable insight into the performance of employees on a regular basis.

Just be sure that managers have access to a convenient place to keep all the notes they have taken from their one-on-one meetings and any feedback they have provided to their team members throughout the year in case they need to refer to them in the future. By doing so, managers can easily scan the notes at review time and remember how their employees performed throughout the past year.

As a result of these casual one-on-one check-ins, managers are also able to review and adjust the goals of their team members as necessary throughout the year to meet them. It is possible for managers, for example, to update employee goals to make them more relevant to the business's and the employee's needs in case business priorities change or if a goal no longer seems realistic or attainable.

6. Look for all possible perspectives

To ensure that your organization's performance reviews remain 100% objective, not only do managers need to use goals, collect peer feedback for their employees and analyze their productivity, but you also need to ensure that managers avoid allowing their own personal biases to influence their ranking decisions.

The most effective way to prevent unconscious bias is to conduct manager training ahead of your review cycle. By doing this, you will ensure that your people leaders will be aware that unconscious bias happens when they review their employees. This will enable them to assess their employees objectively based on their achievements and work, instead of how much time they spend at work.

If you have the right tools at your disposal, it is not difficult to track the performance of a dispersed team. The employee monitoring app of TrackOlap makes it easy for your managers to access all of the information regarding their direct reports' performance reviews, calibrations, goals, and tracking leave in one place, making it easy for them to make accurate, fair assessments and feedback when it's time to review their team members’ performance.

We would be happy to provide you with a demo of TrackOlap so you can see for yourself how it can transform your organization's review processes to be people-centric.